No matter how great it is to reduce stress and get outside to play, sometimes our responsibilities or energy levels pull us back in. This is when it’s time to rally up your family and dig out your favorite games.
By playing games with their kids, parents can model essential life skills they want their kids to learn, like how to interact with others, how to deal with losing, how to resolve conflicts, and showcase teamwork, strategy, adaptability, and resilience.
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this in your house but many children are not being taught a sense of reality with all those video games, edited videos, and TV shows they see on the tv and computer screens. Suppose kids don’t grow up with a sense of reality.
In that case, they can tend to set unrealistic expectations for how their lives should work thus creating an impatience for learning and even starting to criticize the way they learn because things just don’t work as well as they do on camera. These unrealistic, unattainable expectations can cause sadness, depression, and discouragement that may hinder their willingness to learn and try new hard things which we all need to do.
This is where games can really be useful, not to mention, totally fun. In a non-threatening and non-intimidating way, a parent can come to their child and challenge them with a new way of thinking, and a new skill, in the form of a fun game.
It’s essential to pick an age-appropriate game to help encourage and build confidence. When you give a child something that is a little easier for them it shoots up their confidence because they are good at it and understand it quickly, when you give them something that’s a little too tough, you can easily discourage them and make them feel like giving up.
In my house, we have a 15, 12, and an 8-year-old that is just starting to read full chapter books, so when we want to include her, we pick a picture or storytelling game like Tell Tale or Cranium Doodle Tales. We also play Scrabble Jr, Battleship, Twister and a game my kids love called Headbandz.
No matter the game, we can practice patience and kindness with each other which in and of itself is a huge lesson for us all. It’s also essential to make it fun with a little friendly competition. We want to ensure we teach our kids not to shy away from challenges but to embrace them and enjoy them. Playing games is a perfect opportunity for that.
As the Armigos brand grows we will be adding many indoor and outdoor games we have planned and prototyped that will be fun for the whole family. Hopefully, you stick around to see them. The first one is designed with tired moms like me in mind. It’s a game that preschoolers and elementary-age kids can play indoors without much instruction or without causing any extra trouble for mom. Now that’s my kind of game for a tired or busy work day 🙂
